


A Sole for a Soul

by edna_blackadder



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 13:12:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19335214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edna_blackadder/pseuds/edna_blackadder
Summary: Aziraphale notices scars on Crowley's feet.





	A Sole for a Soul

Aziraphale had nearly missed them. He’d tried his best not to…focus, too much, on Crowley’s body, as it were. Not that he wasn’t curious, of course, quite the opposite in fact, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that to indulge such curiosity must surely infringe upon some unspoken trust, and he couldn’t so much as think of doing something that might hurt Crowley. Not again, not now that he could see what perhaps he’d known all along but wished so fervently to disprove: they were on their side. If that was exactly where he had long wished he hadn’t wished to be, surely that was his own problem, not Crowley’s.

In retrospect, he supposed that had he taken the opportunity to gaze as intently upon Crowley’s form as he might have wished, it would only have lent credibility to his impersonation, but hindsight was, what was that human expression? Crowley would know, and Crowley would smirk and mock him for his ignorance, because he was no fun, except for the inconvenient fact that he was thrilling. Since time immemorial, Crowley had embodied nothing so much as thrill itself. He had introduced himself giving Aziraphale his first taste of laughter, and laughter at ineffability no less, a temptation every bit as sublime as nudging Eve towards the apple tree, and one he hadn’t even meant to achieve.

For six thousand years Aziraphale had known that Crowley’s rough-edged exterior concealed a soft heart, but what he hadn’t known, not until he’d slipped the damp socks he’d conscientiously kept on downwards, passing Michael’s miracled towel over Crowley’s skin, was that his snakeskin boots likewise concealed the price he’d once paid for showing it. A series of scars, blistering red, etched themselves over the soles of Crowley’s feet, scars no supernatural entity capable of wishing away Earthly injuries ought to have. Aziraphale had nearly given himself away in shock. There could be only one explanation for them, yet not once, in the threescore and eighteen years since, had Crowley said a word, not even deep in such inhuman states of intoxication as the one in which he and Aziraphale found themselves now, as the sun set on the first day of the rest of their lives.

Their circular conversation had covered everything from future plans to ducks’ brains to the potential effect of holy water on a Jeffrey Archer book, and now Crowley half-sat, half-lay sprawled over more than his share of Aziraphale’s well-worn sofa, space Aziraphale was entirely too happy to concede to him. He slumped closer still as he passed the bottle back to Aziraphale, not quite brushing hands, but tantalisingly close. Blushing, Aziraphale looked away, his eyes inescapably drawn back to where his mind had been all evening.

‘OK, angel, have I got a hole in my sock or something?’ said Crowley, struggling to form words around the rim of his glass.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Aziraphale, but he had never been good at lying even when he could think clearly. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You do,’ said Crowley, with exasperated fondness. ‘Oh no. No, no, no. Don’t tell me we’ve got to sober up for this.’

‘I suppose we’d better,’ said Aziraphale. Part of him would have much preferred Crowley three sheets to the wind for such a subject, because then no one would be able to say that Aziraphale hadn’t done the honourable thing in addressing it, and it was just unfortunate that Crowley had been in no fit state to remember. But Crowley sat up straight and winced, wine bottles refilling themselves, and Aziraphale forced himself to follow suit.

‘Well?’ said Crowley, shifting to look at Aziraphale directly, and Aziraphale shook his head.

‘It’s nothing, really,’ he said in a rush. ‘I just—I saw your soles in Hell.’

‘My souls?’ murmured Crowley. ‘What, ones I’ve helped secure? Did they bring the damned out to testify to my lapses in proper demonic craftsmanship?’

‘No,’ said Aziraphale, louder than he would have liked. ‘Soles, not souls. S-o-l-e-s. Why didn’t you tell me about your scars?’

‘What?’ said Crowley, momentarily squinting in what, Aziraphale was taken aback to realise, was honest confusion. ‘Oh, those. Forgot I had them. Been a while.’

‘You burnt yourself to a crisp, rescuing me,’ said Aziraphale, his heart pounding in his chest. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘What was there to tell?’ asked Crowley, shrugging as he leaned back against the sofa. ‘I wasn’t exactly subtle about the fact it hurt like Heaven.’

‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale softly, ‘I would wager my rarest first editions that no other demon or angel bears scars like that. You must forgive me for saying this, I know you won’t like it one bit, but on my life, Crowley, I have never felt holier than under your skin.’

He braced himself for Crowley’s anger; his venomous insistence that ‘nice’ had been bad enough; how dare Aziraphale even think of following it up with a far nastier four-letter word—

But Crowley merely tilted his head to one side with an uncharacteristic blink, taking a fresh sip of whiskey that until that moment had been wine. ‘That’s funny,’ he said, ‘because I don’t think I’ve felt more hateful than under yours. They didn’t even pretend to give you a trial.’

‘Er—’ said Aziraphale, his expectations thoroughly upended. ‘I never imagined that they would.’

‘I breathed fire at Gabriel,’ said Crowley, shaking his head in disgust. ‘At him, not on him. But I wanted to kill him.’

‘Well,’ said Aziraphale, unsure what he could possibly say to that. After a pause lasting far too long, and a slightly nervous look making its way into Crowley’s eyes, he added, ‘I suppose I should thank you, then, for restraining your baser impulses. Not that I don’t understand how Gabriel might provoke such a reaction in you—’

‘No offence, angel,’ said Crowley, his eyes alight with fire and fury, ‘but I don’t think you do.’

‘Crowley—’ Aziraphale began, before breaking off under Crowley’s stare. ‘Well, then, how would you explain it?’ 

‘You, angel, are the only celestial being I’ve ever seen do anything because it was the right thing, not just to cross it off a list,’ Crowley spat, his whiskey splashing over the rim of his glass as he set it down. ‘First day we met, there you were fretting all over about whether you’d done the “right thing”’—he pronounced the words in a sneering tone, theatrically waving a contemptuous hand—‘in giving away your sword, and then, not even thinking about it, you sheltered a demon. The one angel in Heaven who could credibly be referred to as good-with-a-small-g, and he couldn’t wait to see you burn.’

Somewhere in the back of Aziraphale’s mind, he understood that jubilation was probably not the most appropriate reaction to Crowley declaring his wish to destroy an archangel on his behalf. The tears on the verge welling in his eyes might be closer to reasonable, but their motivation certainly wasn’t. But now Crowley was looking away from him, as though he feared he’d said too much and was seconds away from racking his brain for any implausible excuse to walk it back unless Aziraphale said something, and Aziraphale understood now that he could not, must not let that happen at any cost, not ever again.

‘If that is even partially true,’ he said, staring at Crowley in wonder, ‘surely it is because I’ve known you.’

‘Thanks a lot,’ said Crowley archly, but Aziraphale shook his head.

‘I mean it,’ he said, silently willing Crowley to understand. ‘I suspect I may be—’

He broke off. It was one thing to know it, quite another to admit it to himself, and yet another to say it out loud.

‘What?’ said Crowley. ‘What are you?’

Aziraphale sighed, then turned his own wine into brandy. He took a hesitant sip, then turned back to Crowley. ‘The only angel to truly feel love,’ he said sadly. ‘Not the only one to sense it, or to spread it among humans, of course, but the only one to feel it personally. And I don’t think I could have learned that without six thousand years of friendship with a demon who, among so many other things, once walked through a church for me at greater personal cost than I realised, even though it was that very night that I knew.’

‘Knew what?’ asked Crowley. There was an air of urgency to his question that Aziraphale hadn’t expected, and it seemed Crowley hadn’t expected it either, because he visibly drew an unnecessary breath and sat back before continuing. ‘You said just you didn’t know about the scars, which really aren’t anything I’ve thought twice about.’

Aziraphale shook his head, wishing he felt half the courage confessing his feelings to Crowley as he had taking on all the demons of Hell. ‘Knew that I loved you,’ he managed to say. ‘When you saved my books, without a thought…never in all of existence had I felt such love, and certainly not in Heaven.’ He paused, taking in Crowley’s dazed expression. Dazed, but not unhappy, or at least that was what Aziraphale hoped he was seeing. ‘You, er, you needn’t say anything. We could talk about something else, perhaps—’

‘Aziraphale,’ Crowley interrupted, his voice trembling with exasperation belied by an expression of pure elation. ‘I came back for you. Three. Separate. Times. Of course I love you, you bloody idiot.’

‘Crowley,’ said Aziraphale, beaming as never before, lost for words in the best possible way, but then Crowley’s foot brushed his. He turned to see that Crowley had shifted slightly, his arm now extended over the sofa in invitation, temptation personified without a trace of its supposed malice. Aziraphale yielded without hesitation, warmth flooding through his very soul as Crowley’s arm came to rest around his shoulders, their faces centimetres apart.

‘Should we, ah, kiss or something?’ he asked after a moment, Crowley seemingly content to stay like this, helpless to contain the affection radiating off of him as he gazed at Aziraphale. ‘That’s what humans do, isn’t it?’

‘Well,’ said Crowley, ‘I don’t want to go too fast for you, but we are on the side of humanity.’

‘When in Rome, as it were,’ said Aziraphale. He reached out, laying an experimental hand on Crowley’s cheek. They leaned forward as one, and if this was eternity, it might be lovely after all.


End file.
